Things not so rosy for homeless

This article would have us believe that people who are homeless in Toronto are enjoying three square meals a day, and that hunger and malnutrition result only from not knowing where to go. If only that were the case.

The reality is far from the story told. The 2007 Street Health Report, based on a survey of 368 homeless people, found 69 per cent “experienced hunger at least one day per week in the past six months because they could not get enough food to eat.”

Almost everyone in the study used meal programs, but despite this, “58 per cent reported that in the past three months they had still been hungry after going to a meal program.”

A nutritional study of 18 non-shelter meal programs found “the average energy content of meals served at meal programs was half of what a healthy adult would require for minimal physical activity during the day.”

The facts simply don’t square with the rosy picture painted in this story.